Host keeps telling me to cancel then made up lies.

[Nath3783]

Booked a stay this weekend 9/12 in pittsburg. Host states they cannot accommodate me, and request that i cancel. Their reasoning is that i will get my refund faster if i cancel. I questioned this and stated they should cancel. They insisted again that i should. After i advised that is not airbnb's policy. They then claim that they had a bad experience with me in the last year and they have blacklisted me from their properties and they feel unsafe hosting me. The claim is that i rented from them a unit in Ohio and had noise complaints and smoked in their property. However, i don't think they know that i live in ohio. I have never rented an airbnb here and have never rented from them. I use airbnb probably 3-4 times a year and have never had a bad review. This host is a big company with 1300 reviews. So i know they should know the rules and regulations. Am i protected if they refuse to cancel on their end and when the trip date arrives, they make up some lies about me not showing up or claim that i was a bad guest? I have screenshots of the whole conversation. At this point i am willing to wait for the refund as long as i know we are going to resolve this the proper way. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nath3783 You really need to sort this out before your travel dates as if you don't show up I fear the host will take advantage and not refund you.

If you cancel you will not get the airbnb service fees refunded. I suggest you call Airbnb (numbers are in a contact post pinned to the top of the help section of this forum) and ask them to get the host to cancel you.

IF it was Instant Book then the host can cancel free of penalty if they are uncomfortable with the booking. This may be what they plan to do and hence why they have made up a story about you. Whilst it is irritating I don't think this will affect you in any way other than hopefully getting you a refund.

[Sarah977]

@Nath3783  This host is acting unethically- it is the host's responsibility to cancel if they don't want to accept your booking, the guest only cancels when the guest has a reason to cancel.

You should definitely not just let this sit uncancelled- Airbnb CS is quite hard to reach these days, but you need to contact them to explain and get them to cancel on the host's behalf and issue you a refund.

I read so many guest posts where these sorts of things, or non-responsiveness to issues reported during a stay, happen with big property managed listings- if I were a guest I'd avoid those like the plague and look for listings that have individual hosts with only one or a few listings and a string of great reviews.

[Katrina79]

@Nath3783 @I am a host and just had a similar booking event take place yesterday. I had a guest instant book and then later we  both decide it’s not a good idea to continue with the reservation(doesn’t matter why). So now the guest and I both want to cancel the reservation without the guest being out any money. So I convinced the guest to cancel, he received a partial refund. Then I (the host) received an email from Airbnb confirming the guest cancellation with an option to refund the guest in full. The host can literally click a button to refund you in full. I think we figured it out and it refunded the Airbnb fees as well. This was an instant book cancelled within a couple hours after booking. If the host is saying they will refund you in full in an Airbnb message, you may have to trust them and cancel yourself.  Why is the host saying they cannot host you? If your reservation goes against their rules in some way then yes, they cannot accommodate your request.